


Echo (The Sleepless Remix)

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:10:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a new world that Dean lived in, a macabre imitation of the real thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echo (The Sleepless Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [embroiderama](https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/gifts).



> Remix of [The Feel of Hands](http://embroiderama.livejournal.com/11104.html).

He could feel Lisa's breath against his neck. Exhale, warmth; inhale... He slid a hand up the sheets and rubbed softly at the spot tickled by the rush of air, discontented, then glanced over at Lisa, took in the rise and fall of her bare chest, her dark hair splayed out across the pillow. Down the hall, the faucet dripped, Ben's bedframe creaking as he turned over in his sleep. Dean closed his eyes and slipped away, thinking of anything, everything but Sam.

_Sam, rolling his eyes. "Grow up," he said. _

Dean smirked, gave him a wink. "I'm plenty grown. Wanna see?"

Sam pursed his lips that particular way Dean knew meant he was secretly biting back a laugh. He flipped Dean suddenly—and they were on a bed in the middle of a field, laid out underneath the sky; Dean didn't know why, didn't want to know why—and braced his arms on either side of Dean's head. He said, "Stop talking."

Deans said, "Make me," and then arched as Sam bit at the line of his jaw, kissed a path down his neck, and Dean, Dean—

Dean woke up, gasping. Lisa was staring blearily down at him, propped up on one elbow, her eyes heavy with sleep. "Are you—"

"Fine," Dean said, but his heart raced like the damn thing wanted to pump its way right out of his chest, and whenever he blinked, Sam was there: smiling, laughing, and kissing him again and again. "I'm fine, good," he repeated. Lisa shook her head—_I can see right through you_—and turned back over.

Sam used to tell him he was transparent, too.

\--

Cap'n Crunch was Dean's cereal of choice these days, but the box was empty when he pulled it out, shoved back into the pantry with hollow insides. It drove Lisa crazy, and he kept meaning to break himself of the habit, had meant to throw it out yesterday (and the day before that, and the day before that). But he'd felt sleep-deprived and groggy enough to put it off till tomorrow (and the next day, and the next), and today he felt like something a wendigo chewed up and spit back out, so he pushed the box back inside discreetly, yawned and stretched. Lisa stood slicing an apple at the counter, and Dean reached out a hand, cupping her hip and pressing closer when she tilted her head back and smiled up at him.

"Gross. No PDAs," chimed Ben from the couch, and Dean was suddenly distracted by the static flip of the channels, from paid programming to telethon to cartoon.

"Hey, Tom and Jerry! Me and Sammy used to love this show when we were kids," he said, his arms falling away from Lisa. She frowned at him.

"I told you I don't want him watching things like that. It's violence—"

"Yeah, cartoon violence," Dean scoffed. "Give the kid a—"

"Dean!" She tugged hard at his wrist, pulling him from the kitchen into the walkway, out of Ben's earshot. "We discussed this, remember? I'm not locking you out of the decision making, but in the end, Ben is my son, and I get the last word." Absently, she tousled her hair with one hand and sighed. "Okay?"

"No, yeah," tripped off Dean's tongue instantly. They'd had this conversation before (and again and again, and it never clicked). "Sorry."

Her hand slid smoothly up his wrist. She rubbed small circles against his upper arm, gentle. "You seem tired today, baby. Is this about last night? Your dream? You've had three this month. Are we ever gonna talk about..." Vaguely, she gestured, and Dean's mind supplied the rest: _Are we ever gonna talk about how fucked up you are, Dean? We ever gonna talk about why I'm even keeping you around?_

"Nothing to talk about. I'm good. It's over."

It was a ridiculous thing to say, he knew, as blatant a lie as if he were some trinket broken into a thousand sharp pieces still boasting store price, like he'd pissed his pants and decided if he never looked down again, it would go away. He thought he could see pity in Lisa's gaze, and it flushed hotly through him.

"You..." she said, then faltered. "I just don't wanna see you fall apart over whatever this is," she said at last.

She pinched the bridge of her nose as she turned away, tugged back into the kitchen by the sound of Ben's laughter. As Dean watched her retreating form, he thought of Sam's lips against his neck, Sam's hand at his waist.

\--

Ben was getting taller, broader, these days. Sometimes Dean would look at him and catch a glimpse all the mornings he'd spent at target practice, push-up after push-up he'd done even though no one was watching because he'd wanted to be good backup, and good backup didn't need to be told.

Ben asked about hunting, once in a while, with a carefully constructed nonchalance. Dean didn't need Lisa to tell him no on this one, but Ben didn't seem to appreciate that. The kid who'd clung to Dean the first time he'd left was slowly fading out of existence, replaced by someone who resented Dean's sudden intrusion into his life.

Dean thought maybe he understood better than anyone how it felt not to want anyone else in your own little world, just the two of you. And he knew better than anyone how well that ended, too.

Arms wrapped around his waist as he flipped the patties on the grill. Lisa didn't ask him how he was feeling, didn't push or prod like Dean had braced himself for, but he still ached with the effort it took not to pull away, to lean back into her embrace. "Smells great," she said to him, but her tone was off, and he squinted against the sunlight and twisted in her grasp, trying to get a look at her expression.

That was when Dean spotted him. Sam. He had one hand against the lamppost, watching them. Dean couldn't take his eyes off the sight of his brother, deer in headlights, but Sam stared through him as if he were made of nothing but air. Like the Sam from his dreams, always a moment away from fading into nothingness.

"Dean?" Lisa prompted, voice threaded with worry. "What're you looking at?" She whirled, tried to catch a glance, but Sam had already turned away, disappeared, and Dean caught himself wondering if he'd ever really been there at all.

He had another dream that night. He had one every night, now.

\--

Dean slept late on his days off, partly for novelty's sake and partly to avoid the guilty feeling that clawed at the pit of his gut whenever Lisa spotted him lounging around. He napped, too, maybe more than he should have, because suddenly he found himself sleeping until six and waking up to sunset, Sam's face fading too slowly from his mind. He sat up in bed, massaging the start of a headache from between his eyes, and padded down the stairs.

He wandered down the hallway, scratching absently at his stomach, and paused when he spotted Lisa and Ben standing together at the door. Lisa smoothed Ben's hair and tossed her coat over one shoulder. They were both dressed up, Lisa in Dean's favorite little red number and Ben in a suit. "You got a hot double date, little man?" Dean asked Ben with a grin.

Ben made a humorless face. Dean looked away, rubbing at the back of his neck awkwardly. "Ben and I are going out just the two of us," Lisa said, watching them.

"Oh, some kind of... mother and son bonding time, or... "

Ben huffed impatiently, and Lisa nodded. "Something like that. Look, Dean, we've gotta head out," she said, at once apologetic and dismissive. "The reservations are for seven-thirty, and it's already quarter-of."

"Oh, yeah, no, I get it," Dean said. "You two crazy kids have fun. Tell people she's your sister or... whatever, Ben—yeah, okay." He trailed off as the door shut behind them and muttered to himself, "Smooth."

Alone in the hallway, he took an aborted step in the direction of the kitchen. But then he yawned, rubbing tiredly at his eyes all of a sudden, and turned on his heel.

Turned out nap time wasn't quite over yet, after all.

\--

_"Love you, Sammy," Dean whispered into the crook of Sam's neck, too tired to keep the words from slipping into the quiet._

Sam thrust into him once, twice, and disappeared, leaving Dean lying on the bed in the middle of the field just as the snow began to fall.

\--

Lisa was away the next time he dreamt of Sam, working late. Dean made Ben a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner—the food of Sam's childhood, along with macaroni and cheese, spaghetti o's, and anything else Dean could get open and heated up without burning the place right the fuck down—and let him stay up late to sneak in a few hours of the monster movie marathon on SyFy. But the kid was nodding off eventually, head pillowed on one arm, so Dean sent him to bed and tried to get some shut-eye himself.

He lay on top of the floral sheets of Lisa's bed, staring blankly upward. There were no water stains on the ceiling here, no cracks to look at, and after so many years in cheap motels and cheaper apartments, Dean found the absence unsettling. Lisa's house was perfect in a way that sat heavily in Dean's stomach, Dean who looked for crooked lines and peeling paint.

He drifted off to the sound of a car idling on the street outside, eyelids drooping as the rumble of an engine pulled him under.

_They were on a bed again at first, Dean and his brother, and then between one moment and the next, on the hood of the impala. Dean blinked hard, trying to focus and stop the flicker of the meadow around them from barren to sunshine and green grass. _

"Put your hands above your head, Dean," Sam ordered, and Dean's attention snapped quickly back to his brother.

"Who died and made you Queen Elizabeth, sparky?" he mumbled, but he slid his hands up the cool metal of the hood and crossed his wrists. Sam was on him in a moment, pressing down against Dean, nibbling at his earlobe. Dean swallowed. "Dude, which one of us spent an hour in the bathroom this morning washing her girly locks?" he asked, a pitiful attempt at distraction. "You're totally the bottom."

"It wasn't an hour," said Sam. He raked his fingers through Dean's hair, then cupped the back of his head and pulled him sharply forward. "And Dean, man? Stop. Talking."

And then, suddenly, Dean's jeans were biting into his thighs, Sam's hand reaching into his underwear, stroking him. Sam panted wetly against his neck. Dean arched into the touch, yanking his brother closer by the waistband of his jeans, tugging the damn things down.

They moved with one another, Sam's big hand stroking them both. Sam kissed and licked at Dean's chest until Dean managed to get a good enough grip on his hair, and then they were just kissing, kissing, eyes closed, closer and closer...

His moan painted Sam's lips as he came.

The moment it was over, still breathless, he could feel that something was wrong. But he can't quite manage to get his eyes open until the weight on top of him had disappeared, fingers that had been on Sam's arm slipping through air. "Sammy," he whispered, and there was nothing there, he knew there was nothing there, but he opened his eyes anyway and—

—tipped over the side of the bed, emptied the contents of his stomach all over the white, clean floor of Lisa's bedroom.

\--

It was a new world that Dean lived in, a macabre imitation of the real thing.

It grew worse with every day. Sam was smoke in Dean's subconscious, drifting in, suffocating him, never solid enough for Dean to grab a hold of. He fell asleep on the job, propped up by his shovel (held down by his brother), and woke up unemployed. Lisa couldn't look him in the eye, further away from him with every dream. Dean wondered if he talked in his sleep, if any of the sick words inside his head spilled over into Lisa's perfect world during the night. His clumsily assembled life was unraveling at the seams.

And then—

_And then Sam put a knife to his throat._

At first, it didn't register. He was still so high on Sam's touch as it pulled him over the edge. He blinked stupidly up at Sam when he finally felt the bite of the metal, caught off-guard. "Dude, little too kinky for me. I draw the line all the way back at gags."

Sam didn't answer. He traced the tip of the knife down Dean's sweat-slick chest, instead, eyes drifting lower, growing darker with every inch.

"Sam? C'mon, this isn't funny, Edward Scissorhands."

"You gotta let me go, Dean," said Sam, apropos of nothing. The words echoed emptily in Dean's head, déjà vu, burned inside his chest.

"What?"

"Let me go. I'm serious, man." He straightened up, knife drifting back toward his side. "I can't keep pretending this is what I want. You can't keep making _me."_

And then he was leaving, already turning to ashes in Dean's hands, and Dean didn't think, just reached for him desperately. "Don't—don't go, Sammy, please," he whispered, begged, and Sam spun on his heel and pinned Dean against the wall, baring his teeth in what looked like satisfaction. He was solid now, too solid, eyes flashing black. Just as the tip of the blade began to sink into Dean's gut, he wrenched away, opening his eyes and screaming for escape, but—

But Sam was still there.

Dean scrambled backwards on the bed. Sam's head was tipped downward, hair falling into his eyes.

_Crazy_, whispered a voice inside his head. _You're going fucking crazy again, Dean._

"Dean."

He froze in place. Pulse racing, he reached out one hand. Sam's skin was cold beneath his fingertips.

"You're really fucking here," he whispered, because—because it had to be real, Sam _had_ to be here. Some fucked up mix of relief, of joy, anger, love, despair pounding inside his head, he grabbed at Sam, couldn't help at it any more than he could in the dream, fisting his hands in Sam's jacket and pulling him close, pressing his forehead against Sam's neck. After a long moment, he pulled away, but it took everything in him to let his brother go.

Sam. _Sammy._

"Lucifer," he finally managed to say. "Is he—"

"Dead," said Sam. "Adam, too. I'm sorry." He shook his bangs out of his eyes. He looked so fucking young without his hair brushed back. His eyes were dark, but—but his. Just Sam in there.

"I'm sorry," Sam said again. "I promised myself I'd leave you alone, Dean, but—"

"Leave me alone?" he parroted. "Leave me—You little fucking prick!"

Sam shook his head. "Dean?"

He felt sick, insides scrambling to climb their way back out of his throat. "What, you were just never gonna bother to tell me you were back? I don't mean _that_ fucking much to you, that you could maybe drop me a line, let me know you weren't demon chow?"

"What? No!" Sam leaned towards him. Dean jerked back on instinct. "That's not how is, Dean, that's not—"

"Then how is it, huh, Sammy?" Dean demanded.

"I wanted." Sam stopped, swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I wanted to give you a chance. And I did, Dean, but the dreams—"

"What do you know about the dreams?" he blurted. Sam sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

"It's a morpheate demon," he said. "They enter your dreams and mess around with your biggest fears and desire. Usually it's sexual in nature, sort of like an incubus, and it drains you slow. Really slow. Sometimes it's around for years before it finally finishes the victim off."

Dean kneaded the back of his neck with one hand, desperately wanting not to see where this was going, not wanting to believe that Sam could—could know.

"Dean, don't—" Sam shook his head. "Don't do that. Whatever you dream about," he said, "it can't be..." Dean put a hand over his eyes, and Sam paused. "I have them too," he said eventually. "I did, anyway. It hasn't come back since I tried to off it. It won't come back."

"So it's—"

His brother nodded. "Up to you, yeah. It should... it should go away if you tell it to. It feeds off of desire." Sam glanced away, guiltily, and Dean understood all at once: he was in Sam's dreams just as Sam was in his, and Sam had tried, but he hadn't been able to tell the thing that wore Dean's face to take a hike.

He wondered why Sam thought he was any stronger than that, when just the thought that maybe he'd tell this thing to go and Sam would go with it felt like ripping his heart straight out of his chest, still beating. When he couldn't decide if a monster with Sam's face was worse than no Sam at all.

He would do it anyway.

"Fucking awesome," Dean said, and punched the pillow viciously as he lay back down.

Sam followed suit. The sheets rustled when he shifted, knocking Dean's arm in the process. Dean inhaled sharply. "Giant mitts to yourself, Godzilla."

"Excuse the hell outta me," Sam muttered, and it felt so much like old times, Dean could almost close his eyes and forget. Except—except—

Sam had jumped into the pit, and Dean had sat around with his thumb up his ass playing house, dreaming about fucking the brother he'd thought was dead. And now he was back.

Sam was _back_.

"So where're Lisa and Ben?" Sam asked.

"Out," Dean said shortly.

"Thanks," said Sam, dripping sarcasm. "You're not—"

"No, Sam, we're not playing happy suburban family tonight, thanks for asking," he snapped.

Sam sat up. "Dean, what—this is what you wanted, man."

"Yeah, well." Dean turned his head away, cheek pressed to the pillow. "Remember when you were fifteen and you thought having a license would change your life, and then the only difference was that we didn't have to worry about being pulled over when some big baddie fucked Dad's shit up and took a swing at me too?"

"Dean." Sam sounded raw. "This isn't a license. This is your life we're talking about here."

"What do you want to hear, Sam? I was wrong, okay?" He shrugged, chest aching. "I got shit all wrong."

Sam looked at him a moment, and then, silently, he lay back down beside him. After a moment, Dean felt Sam's hand against his cheek, just resting there.

Their shoulders touching, Dean shut his eyes and dreamed.

\--

_"Dean," Sam—_it_ said. It traced a fingertip down his cheek, where Sam's hand had been. When Dean tried to move away from the touch, he realized he was cuffed to the bed. He twisted away and found himself at the edge of a cliff, staring, terrified, into complete and utter blackness._

He jerked away from the edge and pulled himself together, slowing the frantic pace of his breath. The thing watched him, and Dean realized with a start that what he felt was fury. That he hadn't felt anything as strong or as real as what he felt now since Sam had fallen. "Quit wearing my brother, you unoriginal bastard," he growled. "You that damn ugly, huh?"

"Dean, what the hell are you talking about?" it asked, schooling Sam's features into annoyance.

"I know what you look like under all that makeup," Dean said, "and it ain't nothin' like Sam."

"Did you hit your head again," it said, but—there. It scowled and, in a flicker, there and gone, Dean saw it for what it really was, skeletal and rotten, a hunched beast of a thing, before it got control of the illusion once again.

Demons really were ugly bastards.

"Lay down," it said, rolling its eyes, Sam-like once again. Dean gave it a look he hoped adequately conveyed "and what choice do I have in the matter?" and tugged at the cuffs.

It said, "Be still."

"Anyone ever tell you you're real fuckin' bossy?" Dean asked.

It didn't answer, just leaned in and slotted its lips against Dean's mouth. Dean grunted and tried to turn his head away. "I said be still_," it ordered, and it shook Dean roughly by the shoulders._

"Fuck you where the sun don't shine, buddy."

"You want me to leave, Dean, because I can go," it said with measured exasperation, and it stung to hear that in Sam's voice, from Sam's lips, but Dean grit his teeth against it.

"Yeah, you seriously outstayed your welcome here."

Its face fell, the temperature with it. Dean shivered. All around the bed, rain began to pour, turning the dust around the bed into thick mud. "What? Dean, c'mon, you don't mean that."

"I want you out of my fucking head," Dean insisted.

It looked—it looked pleading now. Dean closed his eyes, but it kept talking. "You want hell back? I took that away from you, Dean. If I leave, it'll come back."

Dean's stomach dropped. He'd hoped... well, he'd hoped, stupidly, that it had just—gone away, the blood and bone of hell fading from his memory like a bad dream. The demon must have seen it on his face, because it rushed on: "I can make you happy, Dean. I'm not Sam, but I'm the next best thing."

Dean laughed. "Trust me. There is no next best thing. Plan B's not exactly working out."

"Dean—"

"Go," Dean whispered, barely audible over the slap of the rain against the mud. Then, louder, "Get the fuck out of here!"

"Dean!" the demon screeched again, too frantic now to control itself. Sam's skin burst suddenly to pieces around it as it threw its head back and howled toward the darkened sky.

And then—and then it was gone, rain trickling to a stop, the silence echoing emptily inside Dean's head.

\--

"You know where to find me," Sam whispered into his ear. Dean tossed fitfully, pulled out of the dream as if from under water, and by the time he opened his eyes, Sam was gone.

Dean tore the room apart looking for something, anything, motel stationary or a scrap of paper with Sam's number scribbled across, any sign of his brother's existence for him to hold onto in the meantime.

There was nothing.

\--

After that, Dean's ties with Lisa's world faded away quietly, one by one, and left him with a desperate itch under his skin, an itch for a gun, for rocksalt, for a hunt, for Sam. He made it through Ben's first soccer game of the year, through grocery shopping and dinner after dinner. Ben warmed up to him again, as if he could sense that Dean's stay here was temporary now, no longer a threat. Dean drove them both down to the beach one weekend, horsed around with Ben in the water and rubbed suntan lotion in Lisa's skin. He still saw Sam whenever he closed his eyes.

Upstairs, Dean's two bags waited, packed and ready. And then one day, when Ben was at school, he brought them down.

Lisa sat at the kitchen table with a novel, but she glanced up at him when he entered the room, slowly lowering the book into her lap. He slid into the chair across from hers, and they stared at one another.

"You're leaving," she said finally.

"Yeah, um. I am," said Dean, and it was so much more painful than he'd thought it would be to get the words out, but behind the sadness in Lisa's eyes, there was relief. She put her hand over his on the tabletop and smiled.

"I really do love you, Dean."

Dean worried his lip between his teeth. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I—You, too."

She grinned at that, and he could see a bit of the Lisa he'd first known in her then, vibrant and wild. She leaned across the table, book tumbling to the floor, and pulled him in by his collar for a kiss. It wasn't her lips he felt against his, but she didn't have to know. "Tell Ben he's second in line for the impala," he said when they came up for air, and she laughed and promised.

And then she let him go, and Dean followed his brother to the ends of the earth.


End file.
